


the weight of a moment

by stophit



Series: i carry you [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: :), Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Existential Angst, Friendship, M/M, Mortality, Pre-Slash, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25685011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stophit/pseuds/stophit
Summary: Joshua has been alive for almost two millennia, and dealing with an equally immortal Jeonghan to try and curb loneliness is usually a mistake. He tries not to break his rule about getting attached to mortals, but he could get attached to astoneat this point just to escape Jeonghan for a bit.It's lucky for him that Jun is (a) not a stone, (b) very easy to get attached to, and (c) a well-needed reminder for Joshua that while he's immortal, it doesn't mean he's stopped being human.
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Wen Jun Hui | Jun
Series: i carry you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922860
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65





	the weight of a moment

Like most situations Joshua finds himself in, none of this is his own fault in the traditional sense—if he wanted to be specific, it was Lady Luck’s fault for not gracing him, but he knows better than anyone than to blame anything on her.

Or on _him_ , as it were. Lady Luck be damned. She’s got _nothing_ on Yoon Jeonghan.

Joshua should know better than to challenge him in a luck game, but he was enjoying his day today. Sure, he saw the harm in what should have been a simple game of rock-paper-scissors to determine the last slice of beef between them at dinner, but he didn’t expect a punishment for losing other than being _slightly_ hungrier.

He thought Jeonghan blinded him. That would’ve been much more preferable than what he _actually_ got, which was the form of a hare that couldn’t see because all of his human clothes were draped over him.

“Now you don’t get to feel bad about not having the last slice of beef, because you’re a herbivore!” Jeonghan told him through restrained laughter. Any rant Joshua prepared was cut short by the fact that he no longer had vocal chords that could create anything close to human speech, and also because Jeonghan picked him up by the scruff of his neck and made _vroom_ ing noises while flying him around his stupid _witch’s den_.

Running away was a stupid decision, but the second Jeonghan put him down, he made a mad dash for the door and got it with no resistance. He’d overstayed his welcome at Jeonghan’s, and trying to bargain with him was a last resort. Besides, both of them knew he would be coming back. The circle of immortals was small enough that Joshua knew that neither of them truly harbored any ill-intent for each other, and not just because they couldn’t afford not to be on good terms.

They’re friends, really. It’s just that all those centuries of being alive have affected Yoon Jeonghan differently than it has Joshua.

Next time, he thinks. Next time, he’ll skip sleeping over at Jeonghan’s place, not until his supplies _really_ run low. Jeonghan’s got a kind streak to his friends once every few centuries, and Joshua’s clearly caught him in the wrong one.

As a hare, his nose is more sensitive than his human one, which is how he knows there’s danger, or at least inconvenience. He smells the distinct sharpness of clouds heavy with rain, the forest around him turning to the night sky in anticipation, and his heart sinks down to his furry little paws.

How long has he been hopping around having a little temper tantrum? He left his meager belongings back at Jeonghan’s stupid den, and—come to think of it, Jeonghan’s probably fucking with him out here too, warping space with a flick of a hand. As much as he detests the idea, he needs to get back there. He can’t fix this by himself, and this form could be permanent.

His ears graze against the underbrush, preparing to hop back, but it’s too late. The rustle of his ears seems to signal the rest of nature to open up, and rain starts pouring. He’s soaked in record time, and the smell of the rain is overwhelming his senses.

The smart thing would be to stay there until it lets up so he can try and find his way back, but he’s already close to the end of his rope. He hops around in circles for what feels like an eternity. He _knows_ what an eternity feels like. This is it.

When he sees a light, he could nearly flop over and die, if that was possible for him. The relief is short-lived, however. What’s the plan after that? Walk into this rest stop in the middle of nowhere and ask for a phone book? Flip to the section listing the local witches in the area that can fix a nonconsensual shapeshifting that _aren_ _’t_ Yoon Jeonghan?

So lost in his despair, it takes him a few seconds to realize that it’s not the light of a rest stop. His hare eyes are shit. He understands why English has the phrase _harebrained_ now. There is a large vehicle coming straight his way, and he’s just fucking sitting there.

You know what? Immortality be damned. Motor vehicles weren’t invented when he became immortal millennia ago. There aren’t rules for whether what’s in his blood would win against a hunk of metal moving at inhuman speeds.

He sits there because it’s really an interesting idea and he’s willing to get run over by the vehicle just to test it, but two things happen. One, it turns out to be a bus, and he’s currently at a bus stop, so it slows down before it even hits him, anyway; two, he’s picked up by the scruff of his neck. _Again_.

He tries to complain, but all that comes out of his tiny hare mouth are a bunch of annoyed squeaks. The person holding him starts cooing, and while he’d normally detest that, it’s not Jeonghan. That alone is enough for him to relax, and then the person envelops him in warmth, holding him close to their chest, and suddenly there’s no rain falling over him anymore.

Definitely not Jeonghan.

He looks up and under the umbrella is a young man around the age Joshua was before he became immortal, all kind eyes and a sharp jaw. Kind of Joshua’s type, actually, so he really wishes he was in his human form while getting carried and doted on by some six foot tall Adonis.

“Aw, look at the little bunny in the rain almost getting run over!” He says everything with the same affectionate tone, like the second part is something that he should say with amusement.

“You coming?” asks the voice of the only other person standing in the middle of this empty stretch of nothing. “Bus is waiting.”

“I’m bringing the bunny with me, it was just standing in the road.”

“What kind of dumbass bunny would just be sitting there?” the other one grumbles, but he doesn’t tell his friend to leave Joshua behind. Honestly, Joshua’s gotta agree with the dumbass bit.

“Maybe its leg is broken?” The young man holding him hurries behind his friend, and Joshua’s ears twitch at the sound of his bus fare dropping into the machine.

It’s then that it really kicks in that he’s letting himself get carried away to god knows where, far from the one person he knows could fix whatever happened to him despite being the one that did this to him in the first place. Somehow, he’s just tired enough to accept it, though. He doesn’t want to come crawling back to Jeonghan after the equivalent of a millisecond for beings like them.

“It seems fine to me,” the one holding him says. “A bit scared, but not injured.”

“Jun,” his friend says with exasperation. Jun’s friend doesn’t say anything for a while, like just saying his name is supposed to be enough explanation. “Isn’t it maybe distraught because you’re taking it on a bus and moving it from its natural habitat?”

He could almost cry from feeling understood.

“Oh. Yeah, you’re right! Jihoonie, open the window at the next stop?” Jun suggests, holding Joshua’s little hare body with both hands and lifting him up.

No, he is _definitely_ going to cry for a different reason.

“Wh—no, what the hell? We’re on a moving bus!”

“But it won’t be moving at the next stop. Bunnies always land on their feet, right?”

“Don’t. Next stop is ours, anyway.” Jihoon tacks on a sigh, not even answering the question. Joshua’s known Jun for all of five minutes and he’d have to agree with not bothering, but it’s more endearing than whenever he doesn’t wanna answer Jeonghan. “At least take care of it for the night to see if it’s really injured, then bring it back to the same place tomorrow. No use when this is the last bus and it’s still pouring rain.”

* * *

Jun takes him to his apartment, which is very high above the ground _and_ locked, so Joshua can’t even try to escape. His motivation to escape lowered drastically once he realized he’d be coming back to Jeonghan, and he didn’t want to deal with that. Not immediately, anyway.

“Oh,” Jun says, crouching down in his doorway to look at where Joshua’s flopped over. Both of them are dripping water, because Jun didn’t care about getting rained on once he parted ways with his friend and put Joshua in his sweater to keep him warm. “You don’t look injured.”

Joshua opens his eyes to a shuffling noise, and then he tilts his head. Jun is right in his face, looking with wide eyes. Instead of crouching down, he’s positioned himself against the floor in a position that looks _uncomfortable_ —his temple pressed is against the floor, and he has a leg lifted off the ground.

Is that supposed to be comfortable?

“I guess it’s alright if you’re not injured. That’s less trouble for everyone.” Jun switches to Mandarin, and Joshua takes a second to rescramble his brain to process the appropriate language. “Well, little bunny, you could stay here for a while. Maybe a few days if you wanted. It’s kinda lonely here. I only have one friend to speak Mandarin with. You can be my second!”

Joshua doesn’t mind that plan as much as he might, especially when it’s still pouring rain outside and he’s pissed at Jeonghan for doing this. It’ll be fine after a while. Again, when there’s only so many immortals in the world, one ends up not making true enemies with most of them as much as one does just have playful banter that would kill a mortal on the spot.

He could take the time to relax here for a bit. What’s a day or two before running back to Jeonghan when he’s had millions before and millions after?

He stretches, watching the toes of his paws stretch out. He knows a hare when he sees one. More lithe, more claw-like, larger eyes. It’s not the worst thing he could be.

Jun makes a noise and takes out his phone, poking at the screen. “You’re not a rabbit, are you? I’m still gonna call you _bunny_ because it’s cuter.” He doesn’t seem to care that Joshua can’t respond. He likes talking, and Joshua’s very used to listening. “I’m gonna wash you up in the sink, and then we’ll get you something to eat. Sound good? I’ve got class tomorrow and I can’t mess up this study term, so no interruptions after this!”

As long as he never gets found out and gets returned to the forest safely, there shouldn’t be any harm in interacting with humans like this. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s allowed himself direct contact with a mortal without the intention of leaving as soon as possible. He can settle in and get pampered as a hare for at least a few days—that would be enough for an exciting story in Jun’s life.

* * *

Joshua doesn’t dream. They’ve always made his already long days even longer. His avoidance of dream-filled unconsciousness is one of the few things Jeonghan won’t comment on, because they’re the same in that regard. Jeonghan transfigures for them (and Seungcheol, if he's around) both enough of an elixir to keep the dreams away, and if they fall asleep for decades without noticing as a side effect, then neither of them would ever comment on it upon the other waking.

Legends of the Elixir of Life exist throughout each generation, each society. He, Jeonghan, and Seungcheol could attest to that. But the true golden substance was the one that forced them to forget that they were immortal, existing in a time that never ended. Their reliance on the elixir borders on crippling addiction for all of them, but they have forever to live and never to die. Those words mean nothing.

Falling asleep here at the foot of Jun’s bed carries with it a certain amount of fear. There’s always too much to dream about, too many things for his brain to process when he’s been willingly numbing it, but he can’t keep sleep at bay for much longer.

There are millennia of things for him to dream about and reflect on, but the most common dream is this, as if his brain never wants him to forget: his mother and his father, existing without anything attached. They always speak in a language that no one will ever understand, one that not even Jeonghan can take pity on him and use; Jeonghan was born more than a thousand years after him, and while Joshua can speak his old language with him, Jeonghan can never return the favor.

These dreams are always the same. His parents speak to him of mundane things with a sound far from any language of this era. Part of him is scared that he’ll one day forget how these sounds form words when he is their sole carrier, but no matter how many hundreds of years pass without dreams, he never stops recognizing them for what they are.

Few records exist of the language he spoke in his childhood, and not a single guide for pronunciation exists with what few records there are. Even the most dedicated linguist professors he would chance meeting at universities never pronounced anything correctly.

He doesn’t dare correct them. There would be no explanation for why he’d know.

Living as long as he has, he’s lost a sense of his self—he doesn’t know what he used to be and what he will be, let alone what he is now. He doesn’t know if his personality has remained consistent or if he’s changed drastically. To the entire world, he doesn’t exist at all. But dreams always remind him where he’s from, and after this long, he no longer wants to remember. He doesn’t want to pay attention to how many years he’s lived, how many people he’s watched die, and how powerless he is to the weight of time on him.

His father smells like the fish he’s been catching all day and his mother smells like sweat and iron, callused hands and needle pricks at the tip of her fingers from her clumsy childhood. They tell him in a language that no longer exists: _We would do anything for you_.

* * *

He wakes up eventually. He doesn’t bother counting the hours or the days or the seconds or—anything, so he’s especially cranky when an alarm wakes him up, just in time for him to fall off the bed.

“Shit!” Jun falls right next to him, tangled in the bedsheets, barely missing Joshua’s fragile-boned hare body. Not like Joshua would die—actually, he’s not entirely sure. That’s a new thrill. “Late, late—morning, bunny! You didn’t wake up yesterday, I thought you were dead— _shit_.”

Joshua was never someone that functioned well after waking up, whether it be the following hours or the following weeks after he wakes, so watching Jun instantly jump into hyperdrive is amusing to him (as long as he stays out of his path). He tries to do ten different things at once, and by the time Joshua can get his bearings, Jun’s halfway out the door. His bag still has its zipper open, his laptop almost falling out before he shoves it back in unceremoniously.

“I’ll be back in three hours after class! Don’t do anything weird, bunny!”

With that, he closes the door behind him, not bothering to lock it. Weird habit.

Joshua wrinkles his nose. He took his laptop _and_ his phone with him, so he can’t even do research on where he is and how far he is away from Jeonghan’s lair. He’s not hungry enough to try and raid Jun’s pantries, but he’s not too enthused about the idea of sleep, so he decides to lounge around.

After about half an hour of just sitting around, he runs out of his short list of things to think about that _aren’t_ how many millennia he’s existed—which is most of what he has to think about—so he goes to watch TV. Except that of course, because Jun’s a _student_ studying abroad, he doesn’t have a TV, either.

Joshua’s about two seconds away from slamming into a wall just to cause problems when he notices a small bookshelf in the sitting room. Grabbing one book at random between his teeth, he pulls it out and falls back to start reading. He expected it to be a Chinese novel, but it’s in Korean; there are sticky notes and highlights throughout, each page worn almost thin at the edges and corners where Jun’s fingers must have flipped, over and over again. There are small notes scribbled in margins.

Joshua might be a bit slower at picking up languages than Jeonghan or even Seungcheol, the latter of which is clumsy but much more dedicated than either of them. But he’s no stranger to the languages on this half of the continent, having traveled more times than he could count.

Mortals have such a short time limit to do everything they want.

It’s cute to see how hard Jun works, though. He clearly puts enough care into this opportunity that he works hard to make sure to understand the day-to-day language. The novel itself is a generic romance, something he must have picked up for cheap in the bargain bin back home, but there’s so much love and care in Jun dedicating himself to learning a new language that Joshua’s more entranced by Jun’s handwriting than the story itself.

Enough time passes that Joshua startles when he hears the front door open, flopping over onto his back. It’s a good thing that Jun walks in, because god, what if it was a real intruder? He’d just be _lying_ there.

“Oh! Bunny,” Jun says. He seems more relaxed than earlier. “Have you been looking through my stuff?”

 _Lock your damn door_ , Joshua wants to say. Instead, he rolls on his side, recovering from the heart attack he just got.

“That book’s kinda funny. I had to look up a ton of words once I got to the sex scenes, and every time I could start recognizing one that was sex-related, I had to wonder what my Korean friends would think.” Jun laughs. “Do rabbits understand language?”

_This one does._

“How lonely am I that I’m talking to a hare like it’s a human?”

His voice lowers, and an emotion flickers across Jun’s face—one that looks unnatural on him when he’s only ever seen Jun smile, but one that Joshua knows intimately. It’s the feeling of knowing that no matter what decisions you’ve made, no matter what you end up doing, that neither of them can look back and wish they’d done things differently.

 _Those emotions still exist even in mortals, huh?_ Joshua thinks, rolling back over to poke his nose at the book and otherwise act cute. He knows that feeling too well. He doesn’t want to see it on Jun, and he doesn’t want to remember the feeling for himself, either—especially now that he doesn’t have a way to stop the dreams.

“Maybe I _am_ bit lonely.” Jun’s energy fades to almost nothing, that cursed emotion weighing down the corners of his eyes. He looks over to the book instead, almost at the end, and he lies down beside Joshua. “I’ve got homework, but hey, you wanna read the rest of this? I’ll read it out loud. It’ll be fun. And you were asleep all day yesterday. I talked to you anyway.”

Not quite escapism, but not quite an acknowledgment of the sacrifices he’d made to move here. Joshua can keep him company for the afternoon. His priority isn’t getting Jun back on track with his studies, anyway, despite what Jun told him the other night about trying not to get distracted. In fact, his priority isn’t _anything_ except forgetting that he’s far away from any potential solution to this problem of his.

* * *

He was a sickly child. Many of them were in his time. In this era, Joshua learns the word _terminal_ ; in the time he was born into, one that may as well not have existed, he was simply _cursed_.

His parents would do anything for him, and they did. They struck a deal and paid with both their lives. The next evening he woke from his sleep to tell his parents he felt healthier than ever before and found only their empty bodies drained almost entirely of blood. On top was a letter with a seal that didn’t exist in any of the kingdoms, one that burned his fingers to open.

Those were the last scars he would ever receive, other than the occasional magical ones from Seungcheol when Joshua decided he was bored enough to spar with him.

A less precocious child would have used the gift of immortal life to cause havoc and become a legend. In this era, Joshua’s read enough of stories of these children as reconstructed tales, and he’s witnessed an handful of them, too.

But from the beginning, he was given life without a reason to continue living it. Without his parents or friends he wouldn’t outlive, with the knowledge that any friends he would make could never stay with him, he sneaked off into the night after taking few belongings and setting his house on fire. If any of his neighbors saw him, they said nothing. His family had been struggling to pay their necessary tithes for some time, and it was one less problem in their village, anyway.

* * *

Jun really _is_ lonely. As he’s eating dinner that night, feeding Joshua bits of vegetables, he opens up his phone gallery. He has, like, a thousand unread messages, which is really not an exaggeration—but hey, Joshua gets it. No matter how good he gets at picking up languages, reading and writing them is always going to be a pain. (Seungcheol says otherwise, but he’s also a nerd.)

He tells Joshua all about his friends that he met in Korea, pointing each of them out in a group picture. There’s actually more friends in one frame than Joshua’s ever had in his entire life—there’s at least _ten_ of them here. Jeonghan doesn’t even count as a friend half the time. Jun doesn’t seem to care at all that he’s talking to someone that can’t answer him _and_ keeps stealing his food, because his eyes light up every time he finishes talking about one person and moves onto another.

If someone’s not another immortal, being friends with them is out of Joshua’s realm. Jun quiets when he mentions returning to China in a few years because he doesn’t know what he’ll do with the people he leaves behind, but he shakes his head and keeps scrolling for Joshua to see.

That’s certainly another way to approach it, loving something with full knowledge that it’ll be ripped away from him. Joshua doesn’t know if he’s strong enough for that.

* * *

All humans are born with an understanding—or perhaps, more precisely, a lack of one. No matter how many philosophers come and go in every society, no matter how many followers they accumulate, Joshua is firm in his belief that every single one of them is born without any reason.

Of course, it then follows that all humans are born with the innate need to _search_ —for meaning, for answers, for purpose. It’s all the same. Religions rise and fall, rulers are deified. There will never be a greater purpose, and at the same time, humans will never stop looking for one. It’s a foolproof system to keep their species going.

Joshua, as an immortal, has known this for a very long time. The only answer he has is to numb himself to his own memory, and it’s the same answer his few friends have. There’s nothing for them to do but _continue_ , because _going forward_ is a misnomer. Time stops existing in any sort of linear fashion after this much of it. Time, as mortals perceive it, is completely nonexistent.

He doesn’t have to be strong for bearing the knowledge of existence. No matter what he discovers about the human condition, he’ll have to live with it until the end of time. Humans have to be strong because they know nothing else but limits.

* * *

Joshua made a habit of not interacting directly with mortals unless necessary. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t observe them from time to time, enroll in school (or sneak into the classes since they’re getting so damn expensive and sometimes Jeonghan gets tired of transmuting papers and receipts and whatever for him), and walk around busy places. But he knew that if he started talking to them, he’d leave an identifiable mark.

Over years, small, identifiable kindnesses could turn into a pattern. Legends would arise, because mortals always want something to believe in. He wants to leave a change, but not one that can be attributed to a single person. Until lately, he was _super_ into buying coffee for someone just to make their day, but with everyone recording _everything_ for the internet, it gets harder to do that, too. (Jeonghan might whine, but he doesn’t turn down Joshua’s requests to change his appearance from time to time so he can interact with the human world. Still, he only has so much energy, and indulging Joshua takes a toll out of him, too. Joshua tries not to make it a habit.)

Joshua doesn’t think he’s interacted with a real mortal in a personal, friendly way in decades. He hopped away every time Jun tried to take a picture of him for his various SNS, which was enough for him to get the hint (he hoped), but it doesn’t make Jun any less attached to him.

“I should bring you back to the forest,” he says after a few days, as a way of signaling that he’s given up on his homework for at least the next ten minutes. (Joshua isn’t keeping track, but it turns out he’s got a killing as an unintentional facilitator for the pomodoro method.) “No matter how well-behaved you are, it wouldn’t be good for me to be so selfish. I bet you’ve got a little bunny family and everything.”

Joshua tries not to think about how the closest thing he’s had to family since he was born was Jeonghan and Seungcheol. He instead thinks about how Jun’s somehow calling himself the selfish one for wanting a companion when he so desperately needs one, and then he pointedly does not think about how he’d want nothing more than to stay here and keep him more company until he dies, like everyone else will.

“Maybe this is _your_ exchange trip, like how it’s mine here. You can tell your little bunny family all about what living like a student is like. Actually, did you know pets aren’t even allowed in this apartment complex? So I couldn’t even get an actual bunny friend to keep me company once you’re gone.”

Jun puts down his pencil and lays his head on the desk. Joshua looks up from where he’s basking in the sun, rumpled in the low thread count sheets of his bed. It’s far from luxury, but there’s something comforting about its personality, the way Jun never has to worry about leaving his mark on the world in his own specific way.

It’s a life that Joshua and his friends could never live. His resistance is wearing thin between the dreams of the love he’s known throughout the years and how unabashedly honest Jun has been about both his happiness and his insecurities. He doesn’t know what it feels like to be as unguarded as him.

“Oh, but you have to at least stay for tomorrow, and then I promise I’ll bring you back. A friend’s coming over tomorrow, so don’t be weird, okay? He won’t tattle on me for keeping an animal here. It’s Minghao, the other exchange student from China. He’s good at secrets.”

Identifiable kindness is a death sentence, and attachment is eternal doom, but Jun is a flash of everything that Joshua’s forgotten he could feel over the millennia—regret, anger, optimism, and most of all, _happiness_. Joshua wears down over time, and Jun blazes his own path before him in the blink of an eye. Both moving forward, but in not quite the same way.

Jun smiles, and for the first time, Joshua wishes he knew how to make friends with mortals knowing he would inevitably leave them behind instead of wishing that he wasn’t immortal instead.

* * *

The thing about drinking the Elixir of Life is that, regardless of the fact that it was administered to him without his consent, it didn’t grant him any magical _ability_. He has magic in him, yes—but he was and still remains only a receptacle for magic itself. Every other immortal he’s met was born immortal or used their own magic to live forever, and of those that were changed against their own will, it was never with the Elixir of Life.

Seungcheol once told him that people only ever talked about Joshua’s specific situation in hushed whispers. There was no way to revert immortal life granted by the Elixir, which was already rare to begin with, but there were ways to systematically eradicate themselves from existence. Joshua gets closer every day to asking about the methods, and he knows that the other two would understand—they have their own specific weaknesses for a permanent death, but Joshua has close to nothing. Both Seungcheol and Jeonghan have made it very clear that _hushed whispers_ mean nothing to immortals, who can always hunt down answers that have concrete manifestations.

Magic is nothing more than an extra sense for energies and how to manipulate them; Joshua _has_ magic, but he can’t do anything other than hold it. In a sense, he only exists, but he exists _forever_. He’s nothing like either Jeonghan or Seungcheol, who can transfigure and transform—and do so for him with neither a second thought nor a comment on his lack of ability.

But still, enough of that magic in his blood warps things around him, degree by degree. Time in itself is a magic, far from the linear constant that mortals tend to think of it as.

Jeonghan just says he _reeks_ whenever he comes back after a long period of time, but he always offers cleanses with an understanding that Joshua can never find from anyone else. He never performs one without his consent, and Joshua has never once agreed.

 _That’ll kill everyone around you one day_ , Jeonghan always tells him—just a bit teasing, just a bit sage, and not in his annoying way, either. Nothing but a blank recognition of the lives they live.

 _I know_ , he would always say in response.

He’d like to write down everything he can now that he’s gotten the hang of typing on keyboards (after he _just_ got used to typewriters, too), and he could always record himself speaking languages lost to time for his own peace of mind, but it would cement him as being the last one on the planet to hold any of this knowledge before he forgets it for himself. At least with time still on his shoulders radiating its volcanic warmth, he’s reminded that other people once lived and breathed with the same knowledge.

* * *

Jun’s _very_ excited for his friend Minghao to come over. Joshua’s learned that he can get very excited in the few days he’s known him, but it never stops being endearing, which is a sign that Joshua’s starting to fall apart a little bit. He never thought he’d relate with a mortal, but Joshua’s still _human_ , no matter how immortality skews every facet of his everyday life. Both he and Jun are far away from any lives they once lived, the only ones they’ve ever known. They might not speak the same languages together (mostly because Joshua _can’t_ speak), but they’re still keeping each other company.

Understanding really doesn’t mean being in the exact same situation. Joshua forgets that others can approach him with empathy in this way, too, and it scares him that staying as a hare for the rest of Jun’s life is looking more and more like an appealing option. He doesn’t mind being a weird, inexplicable presence for a mortal to enjoy until he disappears for them to keep their time together as a fond memory, all the way to the end of their short life.

He can’t deny that he’s excited to meet Jun’s friend, too. Jun has quite a few, but they all speak Korean for the most part, so he’s excited to see another part of Jun—he knows better than anyone that many people’s personalities loosen significantly when speaking in the language they’re most comfortably with.

Jun’s preparing snacks for them in the kitchen, passing Joshua a few slices of fruit, when there’s a knock on the door. “Come in,” he says without looking up.

“ _Ge_ ,” Minghao says with the same exasperation as Jihoon said _Jun_ a few days ago. He walks through the front door and locks it behind him, which is maybe the first time Joshua’s ever seen that thing used. “You can’t just leave your door unlocked like that.”

“I knew you were coming and I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

Joshua takes a good look at him as he walks into the kitchen, and his blood freezes.

Minghao isn’t immortal. He’s very mortal, very much so. But he is decidedly _not_ far from the supernatural.

Joshua’s lived long enough to know when a human’s got that sixth sense for energy flow. Much of that affinity for sensing and for manipulating comes down to blood, but not all of it is ancestral legacy, despite what the word _blood_ implies. For him, it was made and forced, receiving and sensing but never able to manifest.

Joshua sniffs at him with curiosity. Somewhere in the background, Jun is still talking, but Joshua’s too distracted to listen to him for once, because he can smell it in Minghao’s blood, even if it’s faint—he’s the only one in his family to have the sense for at least a few generations. All four of the main elements are there, using his nerves as their conductor. He’s got a sense for concrete magic.

Cool that new generations still have magical blood, but not cool that it won’t actually help Joshua. Defeated, he lets out a sigh and flops over. Now the problem is, if Minghao’s trained even a _tiny_ bit of his magic, then he’d be able to sense the amount of time Joshua’s accumulated.

Ah, Minghao’s definitely tried to test the limits of his magic—he never looks away from Joshua as he takes a step back, eyes wide.

Jun makes an annoyed noise. “Minghao? Are you listening to me?”

“What is _that_?” He points an accusing finger at Joshua, who’s still chilling on the counter after the rollercoaster of emotions he’d just experienced and buckling up for another one.

“Oh. He’s clean, don’t worry! I gave him a bath earlier today. But if you find fur in your fruit slices, you can blame me.” Jun seems completely unperturbed. He’s really living in his own world. Joshua could stay with him for ages trying to figure his brain out and never get anywhere, and it’d be still be fun, every day.

When Minghao doesn’t answer, he stops chopping the fruit to actually look at him. “You don’t get flustered easily. I didn’t know you were scared of hares, but I told you about it, didn’t I?”

“I’m— _ge_ , do you know what that is?” Jun opens his mouth, and Minghao puts up a hand. “It’s not a hare. It’s not even an _animal_.”

For the first time, Jun looks at Joshua with fear. He doesn’t like it. He remembers that this was always a possibility, and he steels himself to run away. “Is this… related to your… _thing_?”

Jun is born and bred _mortal._ Not a single drop of magic in his body. But if he’s close with Minghao, and Minghao’s told him about magic, then it means that it won’t take as much time to explain Joshua’s presence and bring everything out to the open.

Time to run.

Joshua’s claws slip on the counter as he scrambles off, hopping onto Jun’s shoulder and causing just enough chaos that he can scramble for the door that Jun always keeps unlocked—except this time, it’s _locked_ , and he can’t do anything. By the time he can get his paws on the latch, he’s floating in midair, his paws flailing for the front door of the apartment that is getting farther away from him. Around him is a magical bind of water, conjured from thin air, soaking his fur. It feels _disgusting_.

Minghao levitates his limp, despondent hare body into the sink, and the water splashes everywhere.

Joshua peeks over the edge of the sink, but doesn’t say anything. There’s no out from this one. Jun rushes over to him and starts cradling him. “Minghao, I’ll always support you and you know that, and no matter what, you’re my friend, and I want you to practice your magic safely, and I’m happy that you trust me enough to show me in the first place, but you can’t just commit animal cruelty to a _friend_ —”

“Wait, you know him?”

“Yeah? It’s the bunny friend I picked up off the side of the road, the one about to get run over by the bus, that one time with Jihoon when we got lost, and—”

“No—you knew the human that shapeshifted into this hare?”

Jun’s prone to rambling, but this stops him in his tracks. He looks at Joshua, and Joshua offers a shrug. He doesn’t know if it looks like a shrug when he’s still in a hare’s body, but something about it must look humanlike enough, because Jun yelps and drops him onto the floor.

It’s a long way down because Jun is six feet tall, but another glob of water saves him from hitting the floor. He’ll _never_ stop feeling like his fur is wet. He really wishes he could just tell Minghao that he can’t die and save them all the trouble, although he appreciates the cushion against injury.

The kindness is brief. Minghao storms to him with anger swirling in each movement and crouching in the most aggressive way possible before holding him with both hands. This close, Joshua can tell it isn’t anger, not entirely—around the hard edges of his expression are the lines of fear. Magic acceptance hasn’t gotten much better over the centuries, although it’s certainly loosened around the world. Joshua doesn’t blame him. “Who are you? What are you doing with Jun? Why are you—who do you report to?”

Joshua makes a squeaking noise, because he can’t talk. Cute questions, though.

“Okay, not a perfect shapeshifter.” Minghao tilts his head to Jun, never taking his eyes away from him. “Where did you pick him up again?”

“He took a bath with me,” Jun says in a tiny voice. “He saw me naked.”

“Yes, we’ve all seen your dick, we’ve barged in on you in the shower to sing you Happy Birthday before because you keep your apartment unlocked— _ge_ , where did you pick him up?”

“When Jihoon and I got lost a few days ago? In that huge forest. We took the wrong bus and got back really late.”

Minghao’s face blanches. “You. Hare. Do you know Yoon Jeonghan?”

As amused as Joshua is about _every_ magic-sensing being in this tiny college town knowing about Jeonghan, he can’t communicate that specific nuance in this form. So he starts thrashing his paws about, making as many little annoyed noises as he can to let Minghao know that oh fucking _yes_ he knows Yoon Jeonghan.

Minghao makes a face. “Jun, are you free the rest of the afternoon?”

* * *

Joshua sort of hates that Jeonghan’s staked a claim on this forest, because bias aside, the guy really deserves it. He’s an upstanding witch with more power than he knows to do with most of the time, and he’s just as skilled as the other immortals Joshua’s known that are _way_ older than Jeonghan.

But like, the things it does for his ego? He’s happy Jeonghan’s more confident in his magical abilities these days, but at what cost?

Minghao piles them all into his car and they set off. Jun’s full of questions, and the first one he asks is, “But isn’t that forest uninhabited?”

“That’s because you’re not magical,” Minghao points out. “He’s there if you know where to look.”

Joshua lets the noise drift over him as they drive out to Jeonghan’s forest. These surroundings aren’t familiar to him at all—he doesn’t know how long he’d been running or how far he’d gone on that night, but he knows as a matter of fact that the path to Jeonghan’s is a hell of a dedicated hike for most people.

Time, of course, never meant anything to him.

Minghao turns onto roads that get smaller and smaller, farther into the heart of the forest, until he parks at some arbitrary point. This road is only wide enough for one car, and Jun asks how they’re going to get out of here if there isn’t any room to turn around, but Minghao knows as well as Joshua that it doesn’t actually matter.

He doesn’t resist anymore when hands pick him up and holds him at arm’s length, right into the setting sun. Jun’s got a careful eye on him as he says, “Look, bunny. I’m sad that you couldn’t tell me your deal, but also I realize you can’t talk. So you’re forgiven for now. If Minghao trusts this guy we’re about to see—”

“Eh,” Minghao interjects, which is the most precise way to articulate how Joshua _also_ feels about Jeonghan.

“Okay, if Minghao trusts him at least enough to ask him for guidance, then I’ll trust his judgment over yours if he says you’re a bad person. You hold so many of my secrets. This is just embarrassing.”

They start on the trek to Jeonghan’s place. There’s no reason for him to feel nervous about returning to Jeonghan; no matter how out of hand their silly games get, no matter how irreversible Jeonghan’s magic seems, they’ve got nothing but endless life ahead of them. It’d be lonelier to keep each other as permanent antagonists rather than mismatched but dedicated friends.

He’s really more nervous that he’s a little attached. Jun thought of him as a pet, and Joshua tried to think of him as the same way, but he wants uncomplicated human company, too. Jun confided in him that he needed another friend, and Joshua was happy to be that companion for even a little bit. He forgot, after living so long, that happiness and hope were so important to mortals.

Not like Joshua can imagine feeling happiness when he realizes that Jeonghan specifically uses his space manipulation magic to give Joshua a really hard time for no reason. It takes less than a _fucking_ _minute_ _of walking_ for Minghao and Jun to find that familiar lair of his. Happiness isn’t real, he’s decided. Not while he keeps Jeonghan as company.

He makes a little grumbling noise, quieting when Jun scratches behind his ear absentmindedly. Yeah, that’ll be okay for now.

Jeonghan answers the door before Minghao can knock. He’s even _wearing clothes_. Joshua’s seen him in various costumes and states of undress so often that he forgets that Jeonghan actually _can_ sense when there’s visitors on his property. “Minghao? I could tell you brought friends”—the corner of his lips twitches here, and he ignores Joshua’s _humph_ —“but aren’t you a bit early this week?”

“Do you know anything about this?” Minghao says. He elbows Jun, who sticks out his arms, thrusting Joshua forward.

“I was thinking you’d run away from me forever,” Jeonghan says in his sweetest voice. God, why couldn’t Jeonghan have turned him into an animal that could at least spit on command?

“ _Hyung_ , I know he’s a human.”

Jeonghan’s expression relaxes a bit, slipping off one mask and into another. “Not right now, he’s not. All right, come in,” he says. He lets Minghao walk in, but he stops Jun at the entrance to stick a reflective, neon orange sticker on Jun’s arm. “And don’t remove that, Junhui. Not unless you wanna die!”

Jun stares. “How did you—”

“Don’t bother asking,” Minghao says before following with a prolonged sigh.

Joshua wishes he could tell Jun that the “protective charm” Jeonghan stuck on him is actually bullshit, and Jeonghan’s been waiting since the moment he became immortal to fuck with someone in a benign way like this. He got those stickers from the dollar store and wrote nonsense syllables on it in some Proto-language.

Switching to Mandarin, Minghao says to Jun (while eying Joshua), “I visit every weekend. He helps me with my magic.”

“Minghao’s an amazing student,” Jeonghan responds in the language, and the relief in Jun’s face is palpable. Joshua _really_ just wants to tell him he’s a shit teacher, but Jeonghan probably, _actually_ has no problems seeing mortals as pets, and he’s much nicer to pets than to Joshua or Seungcheol.

“Why did you transform _him_?” Minghao asks, pointing at Joshua (who Jun is still holding as far away as possible).

“I was bored.” Jeonghan must be used to Minghao’s quick questions, because he doesn’t even bristle at him skipping the small talk and going straight to business. He bustles into the kitchen to attend to the sound of the kettle whistling, but not before he waves a hand without looking.

Oh, _no_.

In a half second, Joshua goes from hare back into human, and not in any graceful manner. He grows _up_ into his regular height and weight, smacking the underside of Jun’s jaw so hard that he hears the clack of his teeth reverberate through his own skull.

Minghao yelps, but Joshua’s used to this sort of bullshit, so he doesn’t even try to save himself as he tumbles to the ground. He falls onto the corner of Jeonghan’s coffee table with the softest part of the back of his head, though, hard enough to crack his skull—he doesn’t die, but he sure as hell feels pain, so he has no idea why he didn’t try to soften his fall.

He’s just exhausted of it all, really. If it wasn’t embarrassing enough that he’s naked in front of the young man he shared a space with for however many days it was, he’s now also bleeding all over himself.

“Oh my God—” Jun crouches down next to him before stopping short.

Joshua can guess why, and he sighs as the Elixir of Life weaved through his body gets to work. He feels all that _time_ he holds rewind until he’s patched up—all of his synapses in place, no cracks in his skull, the blood back in his body.

This magic is still not his. He can’t control any of this. The Elixir of Life, he thinks, is more akin to a parasite. He doesn’t know if, had he fallen like this millennia before, he would be dead. But he has too much time in him now to consider the possibility.

There isn’t a stain on the floor as Jeonghan returns with four mugs and a teapot. He clicks his tongue, but when Joshua looks up to him, he can see a shadow in his eyes. Jeonghan’s seen this happen to him before, and it occurs to him that, with all of Jeonghan’s talk about purification, with Seungcheol being the only one that can leave new scars on him, that the solution to excising the Elixir from his body isn’t as far away as he thought.

That, however, is a conversation for when they don’t have guests. “Shua, nothing makes me happier than you learning how to clean up after your messes now.”

“This is _your_ mess to begin with!” he shouts, indignant—but the energy isn’t worth it. He gives up and flops over again, being sure to avoid the coffee table this time.

Jeonghan ignores him completely and gestures to his couch. “Would you two like to sit down?”

He steals a look at both of the guests. Neither of them are looking at him—Jun turning his head up to a comical degree—and Minghao says, “Can you get him some clothes first?”

* * *

For all of his and Jeonghan’s talks about not getting involved in the non-magic, mortal world, Jeonghan seems pretty enthusiastic about having guests. Of course, most of that is because he can fuck with Jun (who can and _will_ believe him), but Joshua does his best to point out every inaccuracy and fight Jeonghan on it, ignoring the teasing edge Jeonghan’s voice takes when he talks about why he won’t let him have fun with a mortal for once. But under the joking veneer, Joshua sees his eyes sparkle. They both miss having company, and Seungcheol’s not due back for a few more years.

Joshua feels somewhat awkward being back in this human form—he forgets that he can’t just look at Jun as he talks, and while he thought he got used to Jun’s stares, they’re much more embarrassing once Joshua can actually flush under the attention. He was always afraid of getting too close to people that would eventually die, but that fear didn’t make him indifferent to the possibility. It made him yearn for it, and his heart feels lighter than it has in a long, long time.

Their conversation runs deep into the night, and neither Jeonghan nor Joshua want them to sleep over for their own safety. “You two should come out to the city and meet the rest of our friends!” Jun says, trying and failing to hold back his yawn. From anyone else, it would feel like an empty promise. From Jun, it feels sincere.

Jeonghan gives him and Minghao _real_ protective charms this time. This forest is dark and unforgiving outside of Jeonghan’s domain, even to Minghao’s blood.

Jun waves at them with enthusiasm, but just as they walk into the darkness, he pauses. Doubt flashes across his eyes, and then he yells, “Shua- _hyung_ , you better visit, okay? You already saw me naked. I don’t care how long you’ll live, but I don’t want to die with the knowledge that this is the last time I see you.”

Jeonghan bursts out laughing. Head tipped back, almost wheezing laughter. _That’s_ rare, but Joshua can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed that it’s at his expense, because Jun has a way of captivating everyone. Even Jeonghan.

He hopes they can convince Seungcheol to come back sooner than expected. He’d _love_ Jun.

Minghao’s exasperated expression is familiar with how many times he’s seen it in the past few hours alone, but a little twitch at the corner of his mouth always tells him it’s not serious. “Don’t worry, it’s like a rite of passage. All of the good friends we made in Korea have already seen him naked.”

Jeonghan wipes a tear from his eye. It’s a _real_ tear. “Tell me about it next time you come for lessons, okay? And you know what?”

Joshua looks over at him and finds a smile he only reserves for when he reminisces about the blood family he once had, centuries ago.

“Bring Jun too. But _only_ Jun. We’ll come and visit as soon as we can come up with a decent cover story.”

* * *

They stand there for a long time until the sky lightens, even when the other two are long gone. Low enough that Joshua can’t hear any emotion in his words, Jeonghan murmurs, “It’s nice to see the youth of today be kind people.”

Joshua keeps his amusement to himself.

* * *

His belongings are intact, as expected. Jeonghan makes fun of him a bit, but none of his worlds hold any heat.

None of his belongings are functional. There’s a pendant of jade from his mother’s and a family heirloom of his father’s. From Seungcheol, he has cinnabar; from Jeonghan, hematite. After that, the materials hold less symbolic importance to anyone but himself—keepsakes from the few mortals he’s interacted with and chosen to remember, of which there are less than four.

He still holds countless of stories with nearly-forgotten names and fading faces, but the things that persisted—no matter how many times he would recall their grim ends—were their _smile_ _s_. Those were always the final things they gave to Joshua before either he left them or they left him.

That night, in a rare show of pity, Jeonghan silently prepares an enormous batch of the numbing agent before they turn in to rest. Joshua takes one look at it and pauses before shaking his head.

He thinks about Minghao’s clumsy control over his power as he demonstrated for him, Jeonghan, and Jun, and how he could still smile even when it didn’t go as expected. He thinks about how many times Jun told him how lonely he was and how many times Jun showed that he never let that chase him away from meeting people, learning from them. He thinks of the language his mother and father and all of the people in his village used to speak. How nothing he was born into exists anymore, in any recognizable shape or form.

He always considered himself living in the present, but he must’ve been stuck all this time, running away but never in any direction. He’s bleeding time that exists only to keep him alive, and he wants to let it out—because it was _never_ death that he was afraid of.

Biting the inside of his cheek, he meets Jeonghan’s eyes in a challenge of his own. Lady Luck be damned. She’s got nothing on Yoon Jeonghan when he wants to see his friends alive _and_ well.

“How does the purification ceremony work?”


End file.
